Publisher's Description

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From ShaPlus Software:
ShaPlus Bandwidth Meter remains in tray and displays the bandwidth consumed for the session, day and month. ShaPlus Bandwidth Meter will be useful for people with limited bandwidth/month Internet connection. Other features: option to make meter always visible, transparency of meter can be adjusted, option to exclude bandwidth during certain period of day (for those who have unmetered bandwidth during certain hours of the day).

I was temporarily staying at a house with a 5GB limit. Even with limited Youtubing and FB picture uploading, I've in the past managed to stay within the 10GB range for a one month period. Given having to cope with 5GB, I completely stopped any video/photo activity whatsoever, and ended up with only my mail and FB open on Firefox, and an occasional document reading window. I simplified my Chrome to load no pictures/videos to view a TVguide listing. Still this bandwidth meter showed me accumulating usage at rate of about 100 MB per half hour! Seeing that I spend 2-3 hours a day on the internet, I was totalling between 0.5-0.9 GB per day!!!! doing nothing !!! Then I switched back to tethering from my cell phone, same activity pattern on same laptop, and the cell phone usage indicates a much more reasonable 0.2 GB per day. I estimate that ShaPlus overestimates usage approximately 2X, unless it's using that much itself simply being in operation???

it loads fast, it is quiet, small and unobtrusive and does what it says it would do.

Cons

i am not completely savvy with its functions so it could also be doing other things, or not be doing other things, and i wouldn't know.

Summary

so far so good. Loaded pretty easily, and it sits there and tells me how much data has flown by. I've already tracked down two programs i simply cannot use until after i get out from under the data cap imposed by ATT. This will save me some worry.

I am using a "pay as you go" 4G modem that actually does not have a usage meter to guide me, and this is PERFECT. Also totals this up for the year. If you have to stay under a certain usage level to keep from being "throttled", this is a great help!

Cons

NOT ANY FOR ME!

Summary

If you are on unlimited dial-up and have no idea how much bandwidth you consume monthly, this tool is GREAT. With it, you can tell how much bandwidth you would need (at minimum), if you were to go to a pay-as-you-go super fast 4G plan. I now know that it does NOT pay to use the very fast (BUT VERY EXPENSIVE) 4G modem access for daily leisurely surfing, but only when speed is of an essence or when a wireless connection is absolutely necessary.

Also, most wireless carriers that offer UNLIMITED service often "throttle" your usage after a certain bandwidth usage per payment cycle, and their offer then shifts from "all you want" to "all that you can manage to get" after they slow down your connection to dial-up speed! With this tool, you can effectively "stay-under" that unadvertised (but easy to determine through user blogs, .etc) punishment point!

very simple, only totla download and uplaod, not speed. There is better softwares(bit meter !)

Summary

I prefer bit meter or other perfect softs.

Updated on Jan 22, 2010

It has IE flash blocker, Image blocker,(very useful tools); but doesn't show speed of download and upload per second. you can download last version from: http://www.shaplus.com/exes/misc/ShaPlus%20Bandwidth%20Meter-Setup.exe

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